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under the influence of his libations the tint of his skin kept continually altering, passing from a kind of green inclining to violet to a sort of yellow tinged with grey. Hence the portrait scarcely advanced. ‘There are really months when one is not in working humor,’ said I to Murger, who in his book has altered months to years. Finally Espérance, who had never laughed so much in his life, would not leave us. One saw that he was seeking to distract his thoughts. We asked ourselves during his brief absence whether a criminal was not concealed beneath this lamb-like envelope. Some words that escaped him reassured us; he had lost one dear to him, a victim, through nursing him, of the terrible malady that had so disfigured him.

“All this was very well, but a notice to quit in due form came from my landlord. My neighbor on the floor below, a lithographer, complained of no longer being able to get to sleep, and the doorkeeper had backed up his protest. We had, therefore, two enemies to be revenged on. Espérance Blanchon undertook to deal with the lithographer. He had the patience to copy off the bills, stuck up about the district, the names of everyone advertising for lost property. Then he wrote to them in terms something like this: ‘Sir (or Madam) you wish to recover your dog (or your parrot, your bracelet, etc.). You will find it at M. X’s, lithographer, 50, Rue de la Harpe. Insist on having it back, for you will have to do with a man who, without being positively dishonest, will begin by saying he does not know what you mean. Yours, etc.’ The following morning there was started at the lithographer’s a din of ringings at the bell and strong language which I cannot reproduce by any known method of typography. We might have complained in turn of a noise that hindered us from exercising our liberal professions, but we disdained such a